


Return To Me

by PastelWonder



Series: Return To Me [1]
Category: Blitz (2011), Spy (2015)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:41:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelWonder/pseuds/PastelWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks about Susan, about the way she looks at him when she doesn’t think he’s watching, or when she’s too out of it to care if he is. About how she’s only called him Tom a few times - never Brant, and never once while they were shagging. About her long crying jags, sitting on his sofa with her head in her hands, sobbing her fucking heart out for this Rick bloke.</p><p>Strangely, it doesn’t bother him at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover fic, featuring Tom Brant and Susan Cooper. As soon as I saw Blitz (an excellent JS film, by the way), I knew I wanted to write this. And since I've had a bit of writer's block with The Hound and the Hen, I thought this might be a nice way to get the momentum going again.

“It’s a set-up! Nancy? Nancy, do you read me?” Cooper presses her finger against her earpiece, wincing as static screeches through the speaker. The hotel room is lit up with gunfire; bullets whiz through the air, striking the bed, the nightstand, blowing out the window behind her. She covers the back of her head and neck with her arms as glass and chucks of plaster rain down on top of her.

“Su - an? Su - can you - me - an?”

A bullet catches the bedside lamp; it shatters, plunging the room into darkness.

“Nancy? I can’t hear you. There’s too much interference. Over.”

Susan rolls onto her hip, glances out the window. No fire escape in sight, and it’s a four story drop to the street below. She checks her clip. Two left.

_Son of a bee sting._

The gunfire stops. _He’s reloading._

“Come on, Susan. You’re a warrior,” she whispers, loading the chamber.

Clambering to her feet, she hugs tight to the wall as she rushes for the door. It’s peppered with bullet holes, splintering into a million pieces as she kicks it down.

The gunman is on the landing, fumbling with his uzi clip. She aims, squeezes the trigger. He takes one in the chest.

“Nancy, do you copy?”

“Susan? Susan! I’m here!”

“Oh thank God, Nance! Listen, I’ve got to get out of here. I’m pretty sure my cover's blown -”

In the distance, police sirens wail, getting closer and closer.

“I need an exit strategy - now!”

“I’m trying, Susan! Ok, exit the building on the south side; there’s a service door on the main floor. It will take you to an alleyway -"

Susan is already flying down the stairs.

“There she is! Stop ‘er!” she hears one of Montair’s men yell from the floor above.

“Mother butler!” she hisses under her breath. She doesn’t have time to grab the gunman’s clip and uzi as she scrambles past his body.

Jumping the last couple steps, she skids to a stop in the empty lobby, head whipping left-and-right as she looks frantically for the exit. Her heart beats wildly in her chest. Above her, she hears shouting and the sound of feet pounding down the stairs.

_Dang it, which way’s south?_

She spots the service exit at the same time the front door of the motel bursts open, hinges creaking and snapping as it bounces off the wall. Already moving towards the service door, she reloads the chamber, takes aim and  -

“Wha-”

He’s there, in the doorway. Standing right in front of her.

Time stops. The sounds of the sirens and the shouting above gray out, until there’s nothing but a dull pulse in her ears.

Her voice doesn’t work the first time, so she licks her lips, gun still aimed at his chest trembling in her hands, and whispers, “Rick?”

He’s rooted to the spot, his gun pointed down at the floor, looking her straight in the eye.

“Oh my God.” The sob rips out of her chest. The edges of him start to blur.

_No!_ She shakes her head, blinking furiously.

_Have to see him._

“Rick -”

There’s a horrible pain in her shoulder, like her arm is being torn from her body, and then a throbbing ache as she hits her knees, dropping her weapon as she tries to catch herself.

Gunfire booms above her. She rolls, tries to move out of the way, to cover, to safety, but the throbbing becomes a stabbing, and all she can do is lie on her back, ears ringing and eyes welling up.

_Can’t breathe._

He’s there, standing beside to her, shooting up the spiral staircase. And then he’s kneeling, working his jacket off and wadding it up. He presses it to her shoulder; warmth spreads over her chest and down her arm.

_Blood_ , she realizes distantly. _I’m bleeding out_.

He says something to her, but she can’t hear him over the ringing in her ears. She sits up, trying to get closer, to listen, but he pushes her gently back down to the floor.

_I can’t breathe_.

She can’t take her eyes off his face as she reaches up and touches his jaw, his nose, his mouth.

“Rick…”

He presses more insistently, like he’s trying to press the ache out of her chest. Out of her heart.

“Rick, I -”

Leaning down until his face is so close she feels his breath on her lips, he tells her, “Hush now. Lie back.”

 

She closes her eyes, and the last thing she feels is her hand in his as her tears roll over her temples and pool in her ears.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out at the water. She smells the salt in the air, feels the mist against her face. Above, seagulls cry as they circle.

 

He looks just like he always did - handsome, so so handsome, in his crisp suit and dark turtleneck. His gun is in his right hand, pointed down at the ground.

 

_Rick._

 

“Rick!”

 

The corners of his eyes crinkle as he grins at her. “ ‘ello, my darlin’.”

 

_His voice, oh God his voice._

 

“Rick.”

 

The surf roars as it crashes against the rocks. She knows this place; it’s the cliff in Cote d’Azur. They came here together last year. In the late summer, she thinks. Just before he…

 

_Oh no. Please, no. No-no-no-no..._

 

She reaches out to him, fingertips straining as she stretches as long as she can. “Rick! Rick, you have to get away from the edge!”

 

“Susan, my darlin’.” He takes a step towards her, groans, hand pressing into his abdomen. “S’too late,” he huffs, wincing.

 

“No, no it’s not.” She presses forward, feet dragging like she’s wading through wet cement. _Faster! Come on, damnit, faster!_

 

A crack of thunder echoes out over the hillside. She looks around; there’s nothing but miles and miles of clear skies above. _How can it be thundering?_

 

He makes a strangled sound, eyes wide with shock as he clutches his chest, stumbling backwards.

 

_Not thunder. Gunshot._

  
The second he tips over the edge, she wakes up gasping for breath.


	3. Chapter 3

_Something is beeping._

 

She tries to sit up, tries to breath. Pain spikes through her shoulder, clenches her chest. She grits her teeth.

 

“Easy, luv.”

 

She cracks her eyes open, immediately blinded by blue-white light. Blinking rapidly, she shades her eyes with her hand. _What the heck is beeping?_

 

“Nancy?”

 

Nancy. The mission. The motel, Montair’s goons. She took a bullet to the shoulder.

 

_Shit._

 

“Nancy?” She presses into her ear for her earpiece. Gone. _Holy smokes, this is bad._

 

“No Nancy ‘ere, luv. You want me to call ‘er for you?” She feels the bed dip next to her, smells the faint odor of whiskey and cigarette smoke and aftershave. “You know ‘er number? Tell me an we’ll give ‘er a ring.”

 

Licking her cracked lips - her mouth is so dry - she turns her head to the sound of his voice, blinking to focus until his image materializes out of the white-hot light.

 

“Rick.”

 

He’s different, dressed differently, and he smells different. But his eyes, his face, everything… It’s Rick.

 

Lips trembling, a hard knot rises in her throat as she reaches with her good arm, fingertips brushing the edge of his jaw. “Rick…”

 

Eyes impossibly sad, he catches her hand in his, holds it lightly. He studies the back of it, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Not Rick.”

 

As he meets her eyes, she feels her heart pressing out of her chest, reaching for him.

 

“So sorry luv, but I’m not ‘im. I’m Brant. Tom Brant.”

 

She laughs wetly, tears tracking down her cheeks and this is crazy. “Yes, you are. You’re Rick Ford.”

 

_Can’t he see that this is crazy?_

 

“Darlin’, please -”

 

“No, no -” She doesn’t care that she sounds desperate, she should sound desperate, he _doesn’t remember_. “Rick, look at me -”

 

“Shh, please luv, don’t -”

 

“ _Please_ , look at me.”

 

He does.

 

She drags his hand to her face, presses her cheek into his palm. Just like she did all the times they made love, when they sat up together talking and kissing and touching until the early hours of the morning.

 

“It’s Susan,” she whispers, trying to smile even as her mouth wobbles. “See? It’s me, Susan.”

 

It’s amnesia. Some kind of sick, horrible amnesia. Rick isn’t dead, that isn’t his body in the ground in Derbyshire, not him. He’s here, right here, with her, and all he has to do is _remember_.

 

“Susan,” he says her name, gravely and thick with emotion and he remembers! _Thank God, he remembers_.

 

She lets out a sob of relief. “Rick, I -”

 

“Susan.” The look on his face, pinched with grief, sucks all the air out of her lungs. “I don’t know you; I don’t know who you are. I’m so sorry.”

 

Somewhere inside, she knows it’s true. Deep in her gut - in the part of her that twisted and knotted tight when they’d lowered her Rick into the ground - she knows it’s not him.

 

She covers her eyes, mouth open in a silent scream as the horror of it overtakes her.

 

_Not Rick. Not Rick not Rick not Rick not Rick -_

  
He gathers her into his arms, careful of her bum shoulder, as finally she screams out loud.


	4. Chapter 4

“You’re what?”

 

He sniffs, tries to shrug the tension out of his shoulders as he glances at her through the window in the door. She’s propped up in the bed on top of the covers, arm in a sling, waiting.

 

“I said I’m takin’ a few days.”

 

“More time?” Nash asks in disbelief.

 

 _Christ, s’not like I'm runnin' off to joinin’ the fuckin' circus_. “S’that a problem? I ‘ave time on the books, don’t I?”

 

“Ample. No no, there’s no problem. I just… Is everything alright, Brant?”

 

“Right as rain. Takin’ a week or two to clear my ‘ead, s’all.”

 

“It’d take more than a week or two to do that,” Nash says wryly.

 

Tom snorts.

 

“What about the witness? We still can’t figure out who she is. Her passport and ID are fake, that much we’re sure of. Did you get her statement yet?”

 

Tom watches her as she combs her fingers through the ends of her ponytail, staring numbly into her lap.

 

“Workin’ on it.”

 

“I’ll send someone down, have them try to talk to her.”

 

“Don’t bother.”

 

“Why not?” Nash asks, sounding confused. “I thought you were taking a holiday - _Brant_...”

 

Tom’s not impressed by his hard tone as Nash warns, “Brant, if you take that witness home, God so help me -”

 

A nurse is coming down the hall, pushing a wheelchair for Susan.

 

“Gotta ring off. Back in a few.” Tom flips his mobile shut with a smart _click_ as he opens the door for the her, following her in.

 

“Ready, then?” he asks as Susan slides out of bed, dressed in the pajama set he found in the bag he’d retrieved from her hotel. He tries not to look down her shirt at her tits as he helps her lower gingerly into the chair.

 

She smoothes a bit of fringe out of her eyes as she looks up and back at him. “As I’ll ever be.”

  
He gives her his best attempt at a reassuring smile, taking the handles of the chair from the nurse. “Right, off we go then.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Susan, this is completely mad!”

Susan peeks through the crack in the bathroom door to see if he’s hulking nearby before she shuts it, hissing, “No, it’s not.” She sighs. “Look, I know how it sounds -”

“You know you sound madder than a hatter? Well, that makes me feel bloody better, doesn’t it?”

“Nancy, please - I just need a little time.” Susan catches her reflection in the medicine cabinet over the sink.

_What the heck am I doing?_

“Susan,” Nancy’s tone is soft, imploring. Please be reasonable, Susan. I am worried about you, Susan. You are out of your fucking mind, Susan. “Sweet’eart, it’s not him.”

“I know,” Susan frowns at the crack in her voice. She looks away from the mirror, cradling the phone between her ear and her good shoulder as she rubs her eyes tiredly. “I need some time.”

“You don’t _know him_ , Susan. He could be a murderer, or serial killer, or -”

Some of the humor is back in Susan’s voice as she says, “Ok, one: those are pretty much the same thing, and two: he’s a detective sergeant of the British police force. So I seriously doubt he’s a murderer.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Nancy says dryly. “It is England, after all.”

Susan sighs. “I’m not coming home, Nancy. Not yet.”

_Case closed._

There’s a long pause, and then, “You are to call me _every day_ , Susan. Every. Day. If you don’t check in, I will personally come and get you.”

“Ok, will do,” Susan whispers as she hangs up, before Nancy can change her mind, before Susan can find hers and realize this is insane.

He’s leaning against the wall right beside the door when she opens it, coat still on over his sweater. She jumps, because she’s not expecting him and she’s not expecting _him_.

“Everythin’ alright?”

Susan forces herself not to flinch at the ache in her chest when he rubs his fingers in the seam of his lips and over his chin, exactly the way…

She nods. “I told them I’d be back later than I’d planned…” She trails off as he steps closer, eyes on her mouth. She feels ache and want and sick to her stomach all at the same time.

“Took care of the reports,” he murmurs, standing less than a foot from her. He’s bold, self-assured, cocky. Just like Rick.

_How is he not Rick?_

“Thank you, Sergeant Brant.”

He studies her face, smirking as he says, “Somethin’ about you, Susan Coopah. Makes a bloke willin' to lay ‘is ‘and on the book and lie for you.”

The look in his eyes - the hunger - is so impossibly familiar.

Her breath hitches and her stomach dips as he lifts a curl off her shoulder, winds it around his finger. “Wager it’s your eyes - those big green eyes, lookin’ up at me.”

He runs the back of his hand down her cheek, lock of her hair still twined around his finger, his skin warm and rough. Her eyes flutter closed; she’s dimly aware the rims of her lashes are wet.

“But you’re not lookin’ at me, are you, Miss Coopah?” His breath, hot and moist, ghosts across her lips. “You’re lookin’ at ‘im.”

When he kisses her, it’s like Rick and it isn’t. She tastes whiskey and smoke - Rick didn’t like either - but the feel of his lips on hers, the way their teeth click together lightly, the slide of his tongue in her mouth...

_Rick._

She doesn’t realize she’s called him that out loud until he lifts his head from where he’s kissing her neck and breathes in her ear, “Call me anythin’ you like, darlin’.”

By the time he’s backed her into the bedroom, she’s shaking from head-to-toe. He’s careful with her shoulder as he undresses her, kissing and nipping at her neck and breasts and belly. Her stomach rolls as she lies back on his bed against the pillows and watches him take his clothes off.

Their bodies are slightly different - this one’s just a little heavier, and with more tattoos and fewer scars. She traces the ink on his arm as he lies beside her, threading his fingers through her hair and tipping up her face for a kiss.

He works her with his fingers until she’s wet enough for him. It pinches a bit at first, his cock inside her, stretching her. It’s been so long since they -

“You want me to stop?” he asks, braced on his hands above her, when he realizes she’s crying.

“No! No - don’t stop.” She wraps her good arm around his neck, whispers, “Please, God, never stop.”

_He’s here, he’s right here._ She doesn't think she can come like this, but she does, trembling violently and sobbing his name - Rick’s name - over and over.

He only a few strokes behind her, coming with his hands fisted in the sheets and in her hair, rasping, “Susan” in her ear.

 

She pushes at him, frantic, shoulder burning as he rolls away and she scrambles off the bed and into the bathroom. She vomits in his tub.

 

He sits on the toilet and holds her hair back as she wretches for a good half-hour, cigarette dangling from his lips and a coffee mug of whiskey balanced on the lip of the sink.


	6. Chapter 6

He tells Falls about it over tea and toast, casual as you please.

Met a broad, she’s a bit of nutter - thinks I look like 'er dead bloke. Brought ‘er back to my flat. That was almost a month ago. I’m in love with ‘er.

“Well,” Falls takes a sip of her tea, eyebrows raised. “ ‘ere I was, thinkin’ you’d asked me for tea and a chat.”

“S’what we’re doin’, innit? Chattin’?” He grins, propping his elbow on the table as he takes a gulp from his cup.

Falls searches for something to say, finally landing on, “She’s American?”

“Yah. Brunette. Beatiful.” He sniffs. “Bit plump, but you know I never mind a bit’a meat on my birds.”

He thinks about how pretty she looked this morning, kissing him softly on the cheek before sending him off to work with a little wave.

_She’ll turn ‘im into a proper ‘ousepet ‘fore the year's out._

“You ‘appy?” Falls asks, nibbling at a corner of her toast.

The question takes him by surprise. “Dunno,” he says honestly. “She’s so fuckin’ sad, yah know? Suppose that’s to be expected though. When you lose the one you love.”

He looks out the shop window at the sky, thick with heavy gray clouds, and pictures Roberts, what a mess he was when Fiona died. He thinks about Susan dying. His gut clenches.

“I dunno,” he says again, gruffly. “The ‘eadaches ‘ave stopped. They got to be less-an-less, and then I woke up one mornin’ and,” he shrugs, “they were gone. Dreams are gone, too. Been sleepin’ proper since she came along.”

Falls snorts. “Might be the shaggin’ that’s doin’ it.”

He chuckles, taking a bite of his toast. “Might be.”

“Thing of it is, Brant - you’re like a magnet for fucked-up people.”

“Thanks, Fallsy.”

“I mean it,” she crosses her arms on the table.

“Nah,” he waves her off.

“Does she love you?”

He rubs his fingers in the seam of his lips, across his chin. “Still in love with ‘im, innit she?”

“ ‘er bloke that’s dead?”

“Yah,” he nods, slurping at his tea.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, leaning in a bit as she studies his face.

He thinks about Susan, about the way she looks at him when she doesn’t think he’s watching, or when she’s too out of it to care if he is. About how she’s only called him Tom a few times - never Brant, and never once while they were shagging. About her long crying jags, sitting on his sofa with her head in her hands, sobbing her fucking heart out for this Rick bloke.

Strangely, it doesn’t bother him at all.

 


	7. Chapter 7

He doesn’t ask questions.

 

It’s something different about him; different from Rick.

 

Rick was always asking her a million questions: What you doin’? Where you goin’? Can I come with? What’s that for? What you mean? Are you goin’ to answer me or not?

 

But Tom… Tom doesn’t ask, whether it’s because he doesn’t want to know, or he doesn’t think she wants to tell him, or he just doesn’t care - she can’t really tell.

 

At any rate, she’s not surprised when she asks for a gun and he goes and gets one wordlessly from the nightstand.

 

“Need bullets?” he asks as he returns, checking the chamber for rounds and clicking the safety on before he hands it to her by the barrel.

 

“Yes,” she says softly, feeling reassured by its weight in her hand.

 

“ ‘ow many?” That’s Tom, matter-of-fact, needs enough information to get the job done. No more, no less.

 

“Two clips,” she says, watching him through her lashes. He disappears again into the bedroom, comes back with two ammunition clips - slugs.

 

“Thanks.” She sets the gun and the clips down by the sink, bracing a hand on the counter as she turns to face him with a huff. She can’t decide if she’s irritated or not. “Don’t you want to know why I want it?”

 

“Guess it depends.”

 

“On?”

 

“You plannin’ to use it on me?”

 

She blinks. “No…”

 

He meets her eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he levels her a look. “Plannin’ on killin’ yourself?”

 

Her jaw drops. “Wha- I- no! Tom, I would _never_ -”

 

He shrugs. “Then I don’t really give a fuck, do I?”

 

“Tom -”

 

“Look, Susan, I don’t own you.” He takes a step closer, runs his fingers through her hair. Heat licks through her as he rumbles, “Much as I’d like to, I don’t. You’re free to come and go as you please, and your business is just that: your business.”

 

She tilts her chin up, eyes on his mouth as he says, “You’ll tell me if you need my ‘elp, yah?”

 

She nods, murmuring, “You betcha.”

 

The corner of his mouth turns up in a smirk. “Good. You get into trouble, you snap those pretty li’le fingers of yours,” he snaps his fingers in front of her face, “and I’ll come runnin’. 'ow's that sound to yah?”

 

She swallows, throat working. "Sounds good."

 

He kisses her deeply, gripping her by the hips and pulling her into him until her breasts mash against his chest and his arms wind all the way around her waist, hands on her ass.

 

The thought that somewhere Rick is in the ground, rotting, bubbles up inside her. She pushes at his chest, swallowing back bile as she gasps, “I need you. Now. I need you now.”

 

He guides her into the bedroom - her body always seems to shut down when she gets like this - and helps her lie back on the bed, ginger with her newly unbound shoulder. He works her leggings and her panties off her hips, rolls them down her legs and over her feet.

 

She’s not nearly wet enough for him, so she tells him, “Get the lube.”

 

He grunts, shoving his trousers and briefs down with one hand as he opens the bedside table drawer with the other, fumbling around in it until he finds the little blue tube.

 

It’s cold to the touch as he slathers it across her slit, working it into her with his fingers. He hisses as he squeezes another glop onto the head of his cock, fisting it down his shaft.

 

“Oh God,” she keens as he pushes into her, cold and hard and too, too big. She winces, biting her lip between her teeth as she concentrates on unclenching.

 

He hikes her thighs up his, widening her for him as he sinks in to the hilt. He rolls his pelvis against hers when he bottoms out, trying to stretch her around him.

 

“Go go go,” she whimpers, eyes squeezed shut and feeling blindly for his shoulder with her good arm.

 

He rocks back and forth, braced on his hands above her, breath coming in strangled rasps.

 

She digs her nails into his shoulder, flinching at the hot, burning drag. “Faster. Go faster.”

 

“Don’t wanna ‘urt you,” he rumbles, gravelly and choked, keeping the tempo shallow and gentle.

 

 _Can’t hurt me if I’m already dead_ , she thinks. That’s the thought that scares her the most.

 

“Now, Tom. Now.”

 

“No -”

 

“ _Please_ , Tom! Please..” _Show me. Show me you’re real. One of us has to be real._

 

“Gonna damn me to fuckin’ ‘ell, woman. You know that?” he growls in her ear, dragging his hips back and snapping forward and -

 

“Oh God…”

 

He doesn’t whisper sweet nothings in her ear when they fuck, like Rick did. That’s another thing that’s different. Tom Brant doesn’t do sweet nothings.

 

He growls and snarls and rasps, panting hotly against her skin, and tells her she’ll be the fucking death of him, she’s tearing his fucking heart right out of his chest, he fucking loves her, he loves her so much he could fucking choke on it.

  
She doesn’t have a choice - he has to make her real.


	8. Chapter 8

“Tom?” she whispers one night while they’re lying in bed together.

It’s a new thing for him, lying in bed with a woman. Just... laying there, chatting and kissing and staying quiet together. It’s relaxing, and he’s started to nod off when he hears her say his name.

His name.

He lifts his hand, combs his fingers lazily through her hair. “Whassit?”

She appears to have lost her nerve, because she doesn’t say anything.

“Susan? Whas wrong?”

“Tom,” she says again, as soft as before, fingertips tracing the lines on his face.

In that moment he’s afraid she’ll say, I’m leaving. I’m going back to America. It’s over.

She takes a deep breath.

“Susan, sweet’eart, you’re killin’ me.”

“Can - can I stay here a little longer? With - with you?”

He lets out a barking laugh. _What a fuckin’ relief_. “Course you can, silly cow. Stay as long as you like.”

**  
** _Wouldn’t ‘ave it any other way._


	9. Chapter 9

As threatened/promised, Nancy arrives after four months, having made up her mind that enough is enough.

Susan doesn’t tell Tom Nancy’s here. She meets Nancy for tea while he’s at work, at a shop a few blocks away from Tom’s apartment.

“Susan, everyone’s beside themselves. You have to come back now.”

Susan accepts her tea and cookie with a warm smile at the waitress. “I’m not going back, Nancy.”

“What?!” Nancy sprays tea across the table, garnering a dirty look from the man behind the counter. Susan blots it calmly with her napkin as Nancy sputters, “You can’t - you simply can’t - this is ludicrous - what about your life -”

She pictures Tom, missing a shave and wearing his dark street clothes as he headed out for work this morning, clenching a piece of hot buttered toast between his teeth as he leaned down for her to kiss his cheek goodbye.

“Nancy,” Susan lays her hands over Nancy’s, takes a deep breath. Nancy does the same, eyes shining under the light above their table. They exhale together.

Susan repeats gently, firmly, “I’m not going back, Nancy.”

“Ok then,” Nancy nods once, twice. Takes a sip of her tea. “Ok. So what’s he like?”

“Tom?” Susan smiles fondly around the rim of her teacup as she sips. She looks up and to the corner as she thinks. _What’s Tom like?_ “Violent. And sexist. A little racist. He drinks too much. Smoke’s like a chimney stack.”

Nancy chokes, eyes big as their tea saucers. Susan realizes what she’s said and rushes to explain, “Not with me! No - God no, Tom would _never_. He… he’s lost, angry, like -”

_No, don’t you dare say it. You made a pact with yourself, Susan. No more Rick. Just Tom_.

“He’s a good, good man. He cares about people; he takes care of people. He’s just… broken. His job... He's seen so much sadness, and ugliness.”

Nancy recovers, squaring her shoulders with her best _I-can-do-this_ look. “You know what, Susan? It’s like you’re a homing beacon for these types of men. They just - seek you out, wherever you go.”

Susan flaps her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Susan,” Nancy reaches across the table, taking Susan’s hands in hers. “Look at me. Are you happy?”

That makes Susan flinch a little. An image of Ford lying next to her, their hands pressed palm-to-palm, measuring the length of her fingers against his as he asks that question in her ear, flashes in her mind.

“Not yet,” she hears the hitch in her own voice, feels the prickling in her eyes and she is so freaking _tired_ of being sad. She pushes on, brightly, “But I will be!”

“With Tom?” Nancy asks with a hint of incredulity as Susan takes a big gulp of her tea.

  
“Mm, mm-hmm.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Tom!”

 

He doesn’t bother opening his eyes as he calls back from the sofa, lying with his fingers laced together over his chest, “What?”

 

“Do you have a stock pot?”

 

_A what?_

 

“ ‘ow the fuck should I know? Do I look like I’m wearin’ a dress?”

 

He smiles smugly to himself when she doesn’t say anything else.

 

_Silly chit._

 

“Oi! Watch it!” he sputters, rolling to sit up as he spits and wipes his eyes. His sinuses burn, water having gotten up his nose.

 

She’s standing behind the sofa, one hand on her hip. Her nails click rhythmically as she drums her fingertips against her water glass. She still has half a glass left. “Get up and help me find the stock pot.”

_Could be worse_ , he thinks. _Could’a been petrol and a light_.

Though the way she’s looking at him, he’d wager that comes next.

 

“Alright, alright.” He pops the buttons on his overshirt, works it off his shoulders and drops it onto the coffee table with a wet _plop_. “No need to get nasty about it. Jesus, bloke can’t get a moment’s peace in ‘is own ‘ome after a ‘ard day’s work…”

He searches the cupboards one-by-one, banging the doors - some of them twice for good measure - as he grouses, “What you want it for anyway?”

“To cook with,” she says in that long-suffering tone she uses when she backchats him. “Oh wait - there! The big one in the corner. You found it!”

She claps like he’s a retarded child who’s managed to muddle through his ABC’s as he drops it onto the counter with a hollow _clang_.

“Can I do anythin’ else for yah, _your 'ighness_?” he sneers, hands on his hips.

“Yes.” She plucks the pot up off the counter, sets it in the sink and turns the faucet on. “Would you set the table for me, please?”

Does she think he’s the fucking houseboy?

He pins her against the sink, planting his palms on the counter on either side of her as he leans forward. “Let’s get one thing straight, I-”

She rolls her eyes, _Spare me_. “Tom, sweetie, just set the table. Ok?”

She gives his cheek a light _pat pat_ as she turns to shut off the faucet, ass brushing against his groin as she tips some of the water out of the pot and hefts it onto the lip of the sink.

She glances meaningfully at his hand on the counter next to her. “Excuse me.”

_Un-fucking-believable._

“Gimme that,” he growls, taking the pot handles from her and setting it onto the stove.

“Back-left burner,” she directs cheerfully.

“You’re a pain in my fuckin’ arse, woman. You know that?”

She smiles fetchingly, dimples peeking out under the apples of her cheeks and has she ever looked at him like that before?

“Back at you, babe,” she says as she rises onto her tiptoes, hand on the center of his chest for balance, and kisses him.

Sometimes - like now, for instance - he thinks he’d like to shake the hand of the man who shot Rick Ford. He’s a sick bastard fuck for thinking it, and he doesn’t deserve her, he knows.

“What’s wrong?” she asks softly, touching his face.

But there it is, all the same.

“Nothin’,” he says, smirking as he steps around her.

 

Fistful of utensils in one hand, he gives her ass a sharp _slap_  on his way to the table.

 **  
** “ ‘urry up,” he calls back over his shoulder. “I’m starvin’.” **  
**


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is for Val. My sweet, sweet Val, whom I adore. May your beautiful Kitsi return to you, in her own way.

“I’ve been thinking,” Susan starts.

“This oughtta be good,” he snorts into his shephard’s pie.

She smacks him lightly on the bicep. He looks up from his plate, chewing, and gives her a wink. “Go on then, out with it.”

_Out with it? Fine. Sure. No problem._

“I want a baby.”

His fork clatters to his plate; he chokes on a bit of carrot. Susan stands, pounds him on the back.

“I’m alright, I’m alright.” He waves her off, taking a sip of his beer as his eyes water. “Mary bloody Magdaline, Susan.”

She huffs, smoothing her bangs out of her eyes as she drops back into her chair and crosses her arms on the table. She gives him a _well-you-said-out-with-it_ look. “Are you finished?”

He nods, coughing once, twice. “Quite.”

“I want a baby,” she repeats, getting louder to cut him off as he opens his mouth to say something, “and I want to move out of the city. I want a house, with a yard. And a dog.”

“A dog, is it? And a house? Well,” he props his elbows on the table, cracks his knuckles. “S’lovely. Real charmin’.”

She nods definitively. “Yes, I think so.”

_You can do this, Susan. Eye of the tiger._

“So,” he sniffs, “am I invited to this ‘ouse of yours? With the yard and the dog?”

“Since you’ll be the one paying for it - yes, I'd say so.”

“Oh-ho! S’that right?” He looks her over, like he’s sizing her up, trying to gauge how serious she is.

_As a heart attack, buddy._ “Yes, that’s right.”

He throws his arm over the back of his chair, thumbs the edge of his plate, and gives her a considering look. “Now, why would I do that?”

When Susan was a girl, she had a set of encyclopedias about plants and animals from around the world. Her favorite volume was the one about the animals in India. An article in it said the Swamis of Calcutta could tame Bengal tigers just by looking them in the eye. She used to try to stare down her cat, Meatball, the way she imagined the Swamis did in the jungles of Bangladesh - tough, intimidating.

It’s ridiculous, she realizes now, to think the tigers were afraid of the Swamis. Fear didn’t lead them  - couldn’t lead them - out of the jungle and into the monasteries.

“Because I’m asking you to, Tom,” she says quietly, laying her hand palm-facing-up on the table. “Because I love you.”

He rubs his fingers along the seam of his lips, across his chin. Sighing, he lifts her hand off the table, turning her wrist so that their hands are pressed palm-to-palm. He laces his fingers with hers. "Go on, then."

 **  
** She smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't decide if this is the last of Cooper/Brant or not. The pairing feels so dark and decadent to me. 
> 
> Tom Brant is the amplification of Rick Ford's darker character elements, with Ford's redeeming qualities (which Ford has in spades) masked and condensed, yet intense never-the-less. Like a borderline-psychopathic Gotham City!Rick Ford.
> 
> Cooper/Brant felt believable to me in this context, gut-wrenchingly and hauntingly-beautiful believable. Truthfully, I almost like this pairing more than I like Ford-Coop (almost ;D). 
> 
> It was a pleasure writing from Cooper's perspective for a change. We have more in common that either of us thought :)
> 
> Please let me know what you thought.


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